Your 2009 MLB Trade Deadline Champion Is The...

This year's trade deadline was like most of the others, it was hectic. Every single team's front office was scrambling around with a phone on each ear. At the end of the day many great players were traded.

Some teams got a great player and some teams lost a great player in exchange for some solid prospects. For example, the San Francisco Giants acquired two solid players in Ryan Garko and Freddy Sanchez, and on the other hand, the Pittsburgh Pirates totally cleaned out their team.

All teams have different plans when the trade deadline approaches. Some teams are buyers and some teams are sellers. The buyers are the teams that need a little more talent to push them to the postseason and the sellers are the teams that are mostly out of their division race and are rebuilding, trying to free up salary, and simply looking for a new start.

I am going to try something different and crown a team the true Champions of the 2009 MLB Treadline. This is how it will work, there will be all of the regular MLB divisions with their respective teams, I will rank each team and that will be their standing. The teams will be ranked on what players they got that will contribute to their team this year.

I'm sorry for you Pirates fans, because your team will not be winning this Championship because, even though the Bucs got a lot of good prospects I am ranking teams on the players that they got that will influence their play for the rest of the season.

After the division and wild card champions are decided there will be the playoffs. The playoffs work like this. Two teams will face each other and the team that I think did better at the deadline will go onto the next round until they win it all and are crowned the 2009 MLB Trade Deadline Champions. Enjoy!

The AL West wasn't that wild after all. The only team that made lots of noise was the Oakland A's. The A's traded away two of their biggest offseason acquisitions in Matt Holliday and Orlando Cabrera. The Mariners made some noise by acquiring both Jack Wilson and Jack Hannahan.

Both players will help the Mariners in their pursuit of playing in Ocotber. The Angels and Rangers were very quiet this year. The Angels didn't really need to make a trade, and they didn't, but it would have been good for the Rangers to trade for a solid starter.

The NL West was one of the more noisier divisions this year. Most of their moves were small but they will all have an impact. The only big trade in this division was the Padres parting ways with All-Star hurler, Jake Peavy.

All three teams in contention in the NL West helped their biggest problems a little bit. The Giants got a couple of solid offensive guys to help score some runs for their team, and both the Rockies and Dodgers strengthened their bullpens.

Both the White Sox and Tigers improved their rotation with great pitchers. Both the Tigers and White Sox sit at number one and number two respectively in their division. The other team in the race, the Minnesota Twins got another good player in, Orlando Cabrera.

The Royals didn't make any noise, but the Indians might've made the biggest noise of the trade deadline in a bad way. They traded away two of their best players in, Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez. That makes it two years in a row that the Indians traded away the defending AL Cy Young winner.

Every team in the NL Central made a pretty big trade except for the Houston Astros. The Cardinals got Albert Pujols his protection in Matt Holliday, the Cubs got the lefty reliever that they desperately needed, the Brewers replaced injured Rickie Weeks with Felipe Lopez at shortstop, the Reds swapped third basemen with the Blue Jays and the Pirates... shipped out their whole team.

I think that these moves are going to make this division a bit more interesting down the stretch, we will see.

There weren't many big moves in the AL East. There were some small moves like both of the Yankees acquisitions and the Blue Jays getting Encarnacion. By far, the biggest move in the AL East was the Boston Red Sox acquiring catcher Victor Martinez.

The Red Sox have been recently struggling and V-Mart will give them yet another dominant bat that may push them to the top of the AL East.

The NL East had one of the more balanced trade deadlines. Each team made at least one headline trade. The Phillies strengthened their pitching rotation with Cliff Lee, the Braves traded for a couple good hitting and fielding players.

The Mets swapped right fielders with the Braves. So far, that trade is working out for the Mets—Francouer is playing a lot better than Church but we'll see if that keeps up.

The Marlins got Nick Johnson and that strengthened their lineup no doubt. The Nationals didn't give away their star players and that is good, I think that they were trying to find lighting in a bottle with Nyjer Morgan and he is producing.

The NL East seems like its going to the Phillies but everybody else except for the Nats is in the wild card race.

Your 2009 MLB Trade Deadline Champion is the St. Louis Cardinals. The St. Louis Cardinals got two great outfielders in Matt Holliday and Mark DeRosa. DeRosa is one of the best utility men in the game and every team could use him and Matt Holliday is one of the best players in the game.

Holliday will give Albert Pujols the protection he's been needing and that will get Pujols more chances to smash the Big Mac sign.

I hope you enjoyed the first annual 2009 MLB Trade Deadline Playoffs. If you have any questions please leave them in the comments and I will be more than happy to answer.